Elvis Elvis Elvis

Blue Hawaii, TV4, 1995

The act exists because of one Friday-night television performance. Henrik Åberg, born in 1976, won TV4's talent show Sikta mot stjärnorna in 1995 singing Elvis Presley's "Blue Hawaii". Three decades later that single number is still the first line of every venue's copy about him, and the nickname it earned — Sweden's Elvis — is still how he is sold.

What followed was a mainstream Swedish pop career rather than a tribute career. On 13 April 1996 Åberg represented Sweden at the European Soundmix Show in Amsterdam. The same year he entered Melodifestivalen with a song written by Lasse Berghagen and Lasse Holm; it did not reach the final, but it spent 36 weeks on Svensktoppen. Five further Svensktoppen entries followed between 1996 and 1998, some of them recorded with the band Martinez.

His studio albums run from 1996 to 2014, including releases on Sony Music, and a 2011 tribute record made with Jack Baymoore. For a period his touring band was led by Rutger Gunnarsson, the bassist who played on ABBA's records. That is an unusual grounding for someone who now spends November in regional concert halls in a jumpsuit, and it is the main reason the Swedish half of this bill reads as a working singer's job rather than a novelty.

The producer whose name is on the posters

The show is built, cast and routed by Jerry Carlson, who has worked as a full-time performer and producer since 1996 and whose company, Tourman AB, promotes in Sweden as Tourman in Sweden. Carlson's own stage identity is Jerry Lee Lewis rather than Presley — he is marketed in Sweden as the country's Jerry Lee, and his promotional material claims approval from the Lewis family.

Carlson assembled The Legends in 2001 and has toured it repeatedly since. Around it he has accumulated a catalogue of nostalgia productions that share a method: a named original, a cast of specialist interpreters, a shared band, a seated hall. Kings of Rock and Roll, History of Rock'n'roll, Cash Is King and Så minns vi Elvis all come from the same workshop. His own count is 11 albums and three DVDs.

Elvis, Elvis, Elvis! is the Presley entry in that catalogue, and it is the one that scaled. Its first run, in autumn 2024, is described by every venue carrying the 2026 dates as the reason it was remounted — which is the only form of review data the production has made public.

Three Elvises, four names

The bill is sold on the idea of three leading Presley interpreters, but four performers are listed. Åberg takes the Swedish share. Paul Larcombe, based in England, is billed as ranked first in Europe and as a recent nominee for the world title. The substance behind that framing is a competition record: Larcombe, from Crewe in Cheshire, won the United Kingdom qualifier in 2023 and reached the top ten of Elvis Presley Enterprises' Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist final in Memphis, the first British entrant to place that high in the official contest.

Josh Whittall is the third interpreter, carried over from the 2024 run on the strength of audience response; the venue copy leans entirely on vocal accuracy rather than on movement or costume, which suggests where he is used in the running order. Carlson himself takes the fourth slot, and his Jerry Lee Lewis set is the one place where the evening stops being a Presley recital — a piano-driven break rather than a support act.

No venue publishes who sings what. There is no printed song list, no advertised band personnel and no named musical director, which is a deliberate feature of this kind of production: the cast rotates between tours and the running order is treated as the producer's property rather than as advertised content.

The 2026 rebuild

The difference between the 2024 and 2026 versions, as the production states it, is technical rather than musical: the show has returned with what the venues call the latest and most advanced animation technology, and Helsingborgs Konserthus describes the staging as cutting-edge show technology. In practice that means projection and screen content carrying the period setting, which is the cheapest way to make a four-handed tribute read as a large production in a 19th- or 20th-century concert hall.

That staging choice also explains the routing. This is not an arena tour. The 2026 run plays municipal concert halls, Folkets Hus auditoriums and proscenium theatres — buildings with a fixed grid, a fly tower and a seated audience, where a projection-led design works and a stadium rig would not fit. Lorensbergsteatern in Gothenburg and Cirkus in Stockholm are the two most recognisable rooms on the sheet, and both are theatres rather than music venues.

Standing now: 22 October to 21 November 2026

The current run is 21 Swedish dates inside five weeks. It opens at Linköping Konsert & Kongress on 22 October and closes at Gävle Konserthus on 21 November. The first week works the south and west — Helsingborgs Konserthus on 23 October at 19:30, Halmstads Teater on the 24th, Kalmarsalen on the 25th, then Skövde Stadsteater, Vara Konserthus, Slagthusets Teater in Malmö and Västerås Konserthus across 28 to 31 October.

November turns north. Uppsala Konsert & Kongress takes 1 November, Cirkus in Stockholm 5 November, Jönköpings Konserthus the 6th, Hjalmar Bergmanteatern in Örebro the 7th and Karlstad CCC the 8th. After a four-day gap the tour runs Sundsvall Tonhallen, Östersund Folkets Hus, Idun in Umeå on 14 November at 19:30 and Kulturens Hus in Luleå on the 15th — the northernmost point of the route. It then drops back south for Lorensbergsteatern in Gothenburg on 18 November, Växjö Konserthus the 19th, Culturum in Nyköping the 20th and Gävle on the 21st.

Pricing sits where Swedish touring nostalgia normally sits and varies by room: 495 SEK plus service fee at Uppsala, 535 SEK at Helsingborg, and from 595 SEK for the Gothenburg date. Uppsala applies a 13-year age limit; the producer's own ticketing listing applies none. Helsingborg was already flagging limited availability on its October date, which is the closest thing to a sales signal the production has put in public. No Swedish national press review of either the 2024 or the 2026 run appears to have been published.